On August 17, the UW Tech Exploration Lab and the Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub co-hosted an End of Summer Celebration at 1403 University Ave, part of ForwardFest 2026. The evening brought together students, founders, industry professionals, alumni, and members of Wisconsin’s broader entrepreneurship ecosystem for open networking, a student founder showcase, and a first look at what’s ahead for the Lab this fall.
Turnout exceeded our expectations, and the energy in the room said it all — great connections were made, our showcase tables saw fantastic traffic all evening, and there was no shortage of inspiration on display from the teams presenting their summer work.
A First Look at Fall
As part of the program, Sandra Bradley, Executive Director of the Tech Exploration Lab, shared an early preview of what’s coming this fall. The Lab’s three pathways — Venture, Industry, and Translation — have applications that open the first week of September. The fall calendar includes BuildFest, the Industry Problem Drop series, and Demo Night, along with weekly Build Nights and Office Hours. It’s shaping up to be the Lab’s biggest semester yet, with more details on how to get involved coming in the weeks ahead.
Student Founder Showcase
A curated group of student founders and student organizations set up showcase tables for the evening, presenting some of the best early-stage work to come out of the Lab this summer:
- verity.ai — Reads your math or chemistry work as you write it on a tablet, flags the first line where your thinking went wrong, and helps you fix it yourself instead of handing you the answer.
- VeinSight — A low-cost, AI-assisted system that visualizes veins and ranks potential access sites, helping clinicians reduce failed IV attempts.
- Praxora — AI-driven clinical simulation and diagnostic games giving medical students low-pressure, on-demand practice interviewing patients and reasoning through cases.
- BluWorld — Find your QUESTion — the social network of the future, and of today.
- Lobelia — An AI-powered personal asthma management platform providing personalized risk assessments and context-aware advice based on health data, environmental factors, and daily plans.
- Flow AI — An intelligent campus information assistant helping students navigate university life more effectively — not just another general-purpose chatbot.
- EdgeHarness — Makes small, local LLMs reliable for real office tasks by having them plan, check, and correct their own mistakes.
- Agentic AI Club — Evan Liu. A new student club building useful, consumer-facing products with agentic AI to help automate digital tasks and save time.
- Transcend — UW-Madison’s premiere student-led entrepreneurship and startup organization, connecting student founders with funding and mentorship.
What’s Next
This was just the beginning of what’s ahead for the Lab this year. Fall pathway applications open the first week of September — check back soon for details on how students, founders, and industry partners can get involved.
The UW Tech Exploration Lab is led by the Wisconsin School of Business in collaboration with the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, connecting students from across campus with industry partners, researchers, and alumni to explore, build, and commercialize ideas at the intersection of emerging technologies and real-world challenges.